Study of the Clinical Patterns in Varicella in a Tertiary Hospital at Coastal Karnataka

Context: There are very few studies regarding the clinical patterns and manifestations of a very common viral infection, Varicella, especially from south India. Aims: To study the cutaneous manifestation of Varicella with an emphasis on vaccination status. Settings and Design: Cross sectional study. Methods and Material: A total of 118 patients attending the Dermatology OPD of a private medical college in coastal Karnataka with cutaneous manifestations of varicella were enrolled. Study period was from January 2010 to December 2010. Statistical analysis used: Data was analysed using SPSS version 11.5. Various frequency distribution tables, diagrams and chi square test were used to describe and analyse the data. Results: Majority of the patients were males (62.7%) and 21-30 years was the most common age group involved. There were 74 students, out of which eight were in the preschool group aged between 3-4 years. Most of the patients visited the hospital on the second day after onset of the symptoms. 108(91.5%) patients complained about the presence of various prodromal symptoms. Scalp was the most common (39.8%) site of onset of the rash. Itching was experienced by 76(64.4%) patients. Peak number of cases (35.6%) was seen in the month of January. The cutaneous rash was most commonly (57.7%) distributed over face, scalp, trunk, upper and lower limbs, with predominantly central distribution. Soft palate was the most common site (87%) involved in the oral cavity. Conclusions: A wide variety of combination symptoms with classical cutaneous polymorphic vesicular rash and oral lesions was seen

Thymoma with Myasthenia Gravis in Adolescent

Thymomas are exceedingly rare in the first 20 years of life, Thymic lesions comprise approximately 2–3% of all pediatric mediastinal tumors and include thymic cysts, hyperplasia, carcinoma, and thymomas. Fewer than 30 cases in children have been described in the literature. Thymomas in adults are commonly associated with other diseases, the most frequent being myasthenia gravis. However, this association has been rarely reported in childhood. These tumors are typically aggressive, with poor outcomes. We report a case of thymoma associated with myasthenia gravis in a 16-year-old girl and review the literature

Frame- and Segment-Level Features and Candidate Pool Evaluation for Video Caption Generation

We present our submission to the Microsoft Video to Language Challenge of generating short captions describing videos in the challenge dataset. Our model is based on the encoder--decoder pipeline, popular in image and video captioning systems. We propose to utilize two different kinds of video features, one to capture the video content in terms of objects and attributes, and the other to capture the motion and action information. Using these diverse features we train models specializing in two separate input sub-domains. We then train an evaluator model which is used to pick the best caption from the pool of candidates generated by these domain expert models. We argue that this approach is better suited for the current video captioning task, compared to using a single model, due to the diversity in the dataset. Efficacy of our method is proven by the fact that it was rated best in MSR Video to Language Challenge, as per human evaluation. Additionally, we were ranked second in the automatic evaluation metrics based table

Maximally Star-Forming Galactic Disks I. Starburst Regulation Via Feedback-Driven Turbulence

Star formation rates in the centers of disk galaxies often vastly exceed those at larger radii. We investigate the idea that these central starbursts are self-regulated, with the momentum flux injected to the ISM by star formation balancing the gravitational force confining the gas. For most starbursts, supernovae are the largest contributor to the momentum flux, and turbulence provides the main pressure support for the predominantly-molecular ISM. If the momentum feedback per stellar mass formed is p_*/m_* ~ 3000 km/s, the predicted star formation rate is Sigma_SFR=2 pi G Sigma^2 m_*/p_* ~0.1(Sigma/100Msun/pc^2)^2 Msun/kpc^2/yr in regions where gas dominates the vertical gravity. We compare this prediction with numerical simulations of vertically-resolved disks that model star formation including feedback, finding good agreement for gas surface densities Sigma ~ 10^2-10^3 Msun/pc^2. We also compare to a compilation of star formation rates and gas contents from local and high-redshift galaxies (both mergers and normal galaxies), finding good agreement provided that X_CO decreases weakly as Sigma and Sigma_SFR increase. Star formation rates in dense, turbulent gas are also expected to depend on the gravitational free-fall time; if the efficiency per free-fall time is epsilon_ff ~ 0.01, the turbulent velocity dispersion driven by feedback is expected to be v_z = 0.4 epsilon_ff p_*/m_* ~ 10 km/s, relatively independent of Sigma or Sigma_SFR. Turbulence-regulated starbursts (controlled by kinetic momentum feedback) are part of the larger scheme of self-regulation; primarily-atomic low-Sigma outer disks may have star formation regulated by UV heating feedback, whereas regions at extremely high Sigma may be regulated by feedback of radiation that is reprocessed into trapped IR.Comment: 35 pages, 5 figures; accepted by the Ap